Selling a home is plenty stressful, and virtually no one is immune: 95% of home sellers are stressed by some aspect of the process, according to the Zillow Group 2019 Consumer Housing Trends Report.
The greatest sources of stress involve uncertainty surrounding the timing and financial aspects of a sale. At the top of that list is sellers not knowing whether their home will sell when they want it to – 56% of sellers find that uncertainty to be stressful. Doubts over whether a home will sell for the desired price is cited by 53% of sellers as stressful.
Next comes the double-whammy of worrying that an offer will fall through (52%) and the stress of making improvements and preparing a home for sale (also 52%). And 51% of sellers say it’s stressful to time the sale of their old home with the purchase of a new one.
Younger sellers are more likely to say that any given aspect of selling is stressful. For example, 55% of Gen Z sellers find it stressful to leave home for tours and open houses compared to 21% of Silent Generation sellers. The others fall in the middle, along generational lines.
One reason could be experience. Older sellers are more likely to have been through the process before. In fact, first-time sellers are more likely to say that most aspects of selling were stressful to them or their family. The largest gaps between first-time and repeat sellers were: